GPS Installation on Concours

Mounting a Lowrance GPS on the Concours

On my GPZ, a couple of strips of Velcro have kept the GPS holder in place for several years. On the Concours I found there was no good spot for a similar crude technique.

I tried using double-sided tape to stick the holder to the flat spot in the centre of the handlebars, but the Connie buzz soon shook it loose. I tried mounting the holder with machine screws through the black plastic side panel near my left knee. Great mount, but the GPS was almost impossible to read down there.

Finally, I tried mounting a 3rd-party gimbal mount to the handlebars, and this is working very well. Here are the details.

The idea was to mount a commercial gimbal mount to the plastic shell that covers the steering head and ignition key. (This cover removes with two Phillips screws.) However, I didn’t just want to bolt the mount to the cover, for fear vibration would enlarge the holes and work the mount loose.

I purchased a commercial mount made for this GPS from RAM Mounting Systems. A double ball and socket system holds a cradle (not shown here).

The steering head cover plastic is shown here, removed and drilled to accommodate the mounting holes in the mount.

The lower two holes will be positioned over the steering head, and will just take small machine screws through the plastic. The upper two, however, are positioned over clear metal, and I’ll drill and tap the handlebars to accept a machine screw pass-through for extra strength.

I put the plastic back on, marked through the upper holes, removed it again, and drilled. These holes pass through an upper steel plate and a lower cast aluminum bar.

I carefully tapped these holes to accept #10-32 machine screws.

I fastened the ball joint onto the plastic shell. Here is the back side of the shell. The two lower screws (on top here) are just bolted into nuts (with lock washers and LocTite). The upper screws will pass through into the tapped holes. To provide support under the hollow shell, I made spacers by cutting a rigid plastic tube. A dot of rubber cement on the spacers stops them from falling out while I fumble with the shell.

Here is a side view of the shell. The long 10-32 machine screw protrudes below the shell to fit into the holes tapped into the handlebar. (Shown in green).

Since the upper surface of the shell isn’t flat, I also passed these screws through a small spacer tube (circled in magenta) to provide support and keep the ball mount flat when the screws are tightened.

I remounted the shell, carefully lining up the upper machine screws and tightening them into the handlebar. Screws, washers, and lock washers are stainless.

In this photo the upper two screws are screwed into the handlebar metal (with LocTite), while the lower two just pass through nuts on the other side of the plastic.

It’s very sturdy.

You can just see the short aluminum spacer tube that fills the gap caused by the raised portion in the plastic shell. Without this, the ball mount had a tendency to tip into that space when the screws were tightened.

With the cradle screwed onto the other end of the ball mount, the unit sits above the handlebars and is adjustable in all dimensions.

I ran a power cable from the bike’s accessory leads to the DC power plug on the back of the unit.

From the side you can see the two-ball mount and the large thumbscrew that loosens the joints for position adjustment.

From the rider position, the unit is very visible, and can be moved around to clear the instruments, tank bag, etc.